Sunday, January 29, 2012

Telling Time II: With Roman Hands

In this second of a short series of posts, I'll review:

TELLING TIME WITH ROMAN NUMERALS & HANDS
As described in the previous post, we use the term "analog" for the stereotypical round clock or watch with 2 or 3 hands. Let's look at the possible variations with Roman numerals:


This classy gold Daniel Roth two-hand watch has all twelve hours indicated with Roman numerals. There are no other features (date, seconds, etc.) to confuse us. It's not a round case, but the dial is round.


The Admiral Swiss pocket watch in this picture shows classic very tightly-spaced Roman numerals, but has Arabic numerals on the small seconds display at VI. The blued steel hands are long and thin, matching the numerals. This is a typical pocket watch.


This beautiful new watch was completely hand-made by Roger Smith, in England. It has a small seconds indicator at VI and a date window between IX and X.  The hands are carved from gold rods. It costs a fortune and is a real work of art. That's my hand holding it.


My wife's Sinn watch has a mother-of-pearl dial, a date window in place of the VI, and raised Roman numerals for all the other hour indications. There are dots on the outer perimeter of the dial to indicate minutes. The hands glow in the dark (faintly).


This Chronoswiss Regulator watch has three hands on separate arbors (shafts), like old "grandfather" clocks. The hours are shown on the top subdial, indicated with Roman numerals. The minute hand is in the middle with Arabic numerals every 5 minutes around the outside of the minute track. The seconds are on the bottom subdial, which is also labeled with Arabic numerals.


Here's a last sample, a dressy regulator watch with hours at 2 o'clock, indicated by tiny Roman numerals. The minutes hand revolves around the center arbor, the seconds are on the subdial at 6, and the phase of the moon shown at 10. The hands are made like arrows, to reflects the company's name, which translates in English as Gold Arrow.

In the next post we will move on to telling time without Hands.